The Buzz

At seven years old, Hunter Leininger talked his way into his first adventure race; by ten he was a national champion, and he's spent the eighteen years since turning a childhood obsession into a profession, holding the fastest unsupported traverse of Iceland (370 miles), the FKT for the 1,110-mile length of Florida, and a Guinness World Record for climbing all fifty state high points.
In this conversation, Buzz and Hunter get into the strange education of growing up sleep-deprived (including the time his dad towed him by bungee cord while he sleepwalked through a 2 a.m. trek), the actual tactics of staying awake for days (pre-loading caffeine before the crash, fueling so you never fall behind, the ninety-second dirt nap )and how adventure racing builds the kind of toughness that's quietly producing today's best ultrarunners. Then the industry question Buzz can't resist: how a 25-year-old with no Western States win built a full-time career out of FKTs, TV shows, and content, and what the freelance-athlete model means for everyone trying to make a living in a sport with no teams and almost no prize money.
This episode is brought to you in part by VKTRY: high-mileage carbon-plated insoles built to last over 1,000 miles, with a 90-day money-back guarantee. Find them at vktry.com. 
And, The Buzz is supported by Arc'teryx, and the new Sylan 2 a propulsive trail running shoe designed for speed and reduced fatigue. 
The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Nancy Hobbs founded the American Trail Running Association in 1996, helped establish USATF's Mountain Ultra Trail Council and chaired it for decades, and has served on the international boards governing trail and mountain running for some thirty years. Buzz and Nancy get into the underbelly of the sport: the governance.
They cover how the USATF Mountain Ultra Trail Council grew from a $750 annual budget to six figures, what a membership fee actually buys you (secondary medical insurance and drug testing, not just a warm fuzzies), why the biggest races, UTMB, Hardrock, Western States, aren't the official championships and what that imbalance does to the sport, the women reshaping who shows up on the start line, and the question Buzz keeps poking at: does trail running belong in the Olympics, and would it survive the trip? Also: a throwdown, a postcard, and a hard-won case for permission to walk.
The Buzz is brought to you by Wahoo treadmills, and VKTRY insoles. 
The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Danelle Ballengee is one of the most decorated endurance athletes in American history, a four-time Pikes Peak Marathon champion, two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, and six-time US Athlete of the Year across four different endurance sports. In December 2006, on a routine training run near her home in Moab, she slipped on black ice on the Amasa Back trail, fell roughly 60 feet, shattered her sacrum, broke her pelvis, and spent two sub-freezing nights alone in the desert before her dog Taz led search and rescue to her location.
In this conversation, Buzz sits down with Danelle at the Moab Public Library to revisit the golden era of adventure racing under Mark Burnett's Eco-Challenge, coming back two decades later for Bear Grylls' rebooted World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji alongside Travis and Mark Macy, the fall that should have killed her, and what it feels like to live what she calls borrowed time.
Danelle is the founder and race director of the Moab Trail Marathon and Half Marathon, held the first weekend in November. 
Check out VKTRY performance insoles that allow you to make any shoe a carbon shoe for a fraction of the cost. 
The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Matt Carpenter is the most decorated mountain runner in American history, 18-time Pikes Peak champion across twelve marathons and six ascents, holder of the Pikes Peak Marathon course record at 3:16:39 since 1993, and the man who took 90 minutes off the Leadville Trail 100 record in 2005 with a 15:42:59 that stood until 2024 when broken by David Roche.
In this conversation, Matt walks Buzz through what 33 years on top of Pikes Peak actually requires: the obsessive training math behind the 3-2-1 workout above 12,000 feet, the consistency-quality-quantity-rest pyramid that shaped every season, why a 90.2 VO2 max isn't the whole story (running economy is, and his was poor until he trained it), and the moment Ricardo Mejía's 1992 win lit the fire that produced the record the following August. They get into Matt's Fila SkyRunners years racing flat marathons at 17,060 feet in Tibet, his unconventional Leadville fueling system, 50 calories every ten minutes, watch set to beep, why he carried bottles in his armpits before running vests existed, and what made him retire on his own terms at 47 after winning Pikes Peak six years running. Plus the custard shop, the Planet Fitness bench-press streak, and a clear-eyed take on whether his marathon record will ever fall.
This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run, the smart treadmill with run-free mode and automatic grade control from -3% to 15%. Learn more at wahoofitness.com.
The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.

Dave Mackey is a two-time USATF Ultrarunner of the Year, former rim-to-rim-to-rim Grand Canyon record holder, JFK 50 champion, and, after a freak fall off Bear Peak in May 2015, thirteen surgeries, and a voluntary below-the-knee amputation in November 2016, one of the more improbable comebacks in the sport. Buzz and Dave recorded the first part of this episode on the exact rock Dave fell off, on the summit of Bear Peak, in an actual snowstorm, wearing actual shorts.
In this conversation, Dave walks through the accident itself and the friends who got him off the mountain alive, why he ultimately chose amputation over more reconstruction, what proprioception feels like on a carbon-fiber running blade, his pre-Western States taper (rock climbing in Tuolumne Meadows), being one of the first American athletes to lace up a pair of absurd-looking early Hokas, and why he thinks modern ultrarunners are faster, better rested, and, for the most part, smiling more than his generation did. He's signed up for the Leadville Challenge again this summer, and he's still, as Travis Macy puts it, a runner's runner.
This episode is brought to you by the Wahoo Kickr Run — a high-end smart treadmill with Run-Free mode (the belt auto-adjusts to your pace) and automatic grade control from -3% to +15%. Check it out at wahoofitness.com.
The Buzz is part of the UltraSignup Podcast Network.